Man Found Guilty of Attempting to Kill Salman Rushdie

AFP | New York, United States

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An American-Lebanese man was found guilty on Friday of attempting to kill novelist Salman Rushdie by storming a stage and repeatedly plunging a knife into the "Satanic Verses" author.

Hadi Matar faces up to 25 years in prison and will be sentenced in April after being convicted of attempted murder and assault charges related to the 2022 attack.

Matar’s legal team had argued that he was a victim of persecution following Iran’s 1989 fatwa calling for Rushdie’s murder over supposed blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses."

Rushdie described the attack as a “stab wound in my eye, intensely painful, after which I was screaming because of the pain," adding that he was left in a “lake of blood.”

He recalled the moment, saying, “It occurred to me I was dying” before being helicoptered to a trauma hospital. Matar was found guilty of stabbing Rushdie about 10 times with a six-inch blade, which was shown to witnesses and the court.

Jurors heard closing arguments from both prosecutors and defense lawyers before deliberating for less than two hours. Matar also shouted pro-Palestinian slogans during the trial.

Rushdie had testified about the “stabbing and slashing” he endured during the attack at an upscale cultural center in rural New York.